March 20 – 25, 2020
Category Archives: Arts & Literature
Springtime At The Getty: “Birds Are Singing, The Azaleas Are Glowing”
It’s springtime at the Central Garden. Birds are singing, the azaleas are glowing, and burgundy tulips and blue irises line the paths. However, the crowds are gone—the Getty Center has closed temporarily to minimize the spread of coronavirus.
The quiet comes at a time of transition for the garden. Spring always brings change and renewal, but this year Getty’s new horticulturist, Jackie Flor, has been trying to channel the vision of the garden’s creator, artist Bob Irwin, as she brings the garden back to his original intent
Does the new Golden Celebration rose with its rich, sweet scent honor Irwin’s intentions for that spot? How about the trio of new Redbuds ready to pop? And how would he feel about her attempts to curtail the wildly proliferating Madeira Island Geranium? Yes, they were his favorite plant, but they have run rampant.
“I’m not heartless,” she said a few weeks ago about the robust plants with pink flowers. “But they need to be tucked back into their proper place.”
“Do Remember They Can’t Cancel The Spring” – A Message From 82-Year Old Painter David Hockney
David Hockney has unveiled a new painting to add a splash of colour to the dark times facing the country.
The 82-year-old painter, often dubbed Britain’s greatest living artist, new piece is titled ‘Do remember they can’t cancel the spring’.
Bright yellow daffodils spring up in the foreground in front of a gloomy grey mass in the back of the painting.
Mr Hockney is currently in lockdown in Normandy, northern France, where he has been located since his last exhibition opened.
From a Daily Mail online article
Cookbooks: “Les Dîners de Gala” (1973) By Salvador Dalí Reprinted By Taschen
From an Art Daily online article (March 19, 2020):
“I love eating suits of arms, in fact I love all shell fish… food that only a battle to peel makes it vulnerable to the conquest of our palate.”
This reprint features all 136 recipes over 12 chapters, specially illustrated by Dalí, and organized by meal courses, including aphrodisiacs. The illustrations and recipes are accompanied by Dalí’s extravagant musings on subjects such as dinner conversation: “The jaw is our best tool to grasp philosophical knowledge.”
NEW YORK, NY.- “Les diners de Gala is uniquely devoted to the pleasures of taste … If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive, and far too impertinent for you.”—Salvador Dalí
Read fabulous review in Brain Pickings
Food and surrealism make perfect bedfellows: sex and lobsters, collage and cannibalism, the meeting of a swan and a toothbrush on a pastry case. The opulent dinner parties thrown by Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) and his wife and muse, Gala (1894–1982) were the stuff of legend. Luckily for us, Dalí published a cookbook in 1973, Les diners de Gala, which reveals some of the sensual, imaginative, and exotic elements that made up their notorious gatherings.
Art & Humor: National Park Posters Based On Visitors’ “1 Star Reviews”
Subpar Parks is a snarky love letter to the National Parks System. When I discovered that there were 1-star reviews for every single one of the 62 national parks, I set out to illustrate each park along with a hand lettered 1-star review as a way to put a positive, fun spin on such a negative mindset.
Interview: 94-Year Old Sidney Felsen, Co-Founder Of Art Publisher Gemini G.E.L. (Getty Podcast)
In this episode, Sidney talks about how Gemini GEL got started and grew into the organization it is today, sharing stories about the artists he’s worked with along the way.
In 1966, at the age of forty-one, Sidney Felsen moved from the world of accounting to that of art, founding the artists’ workshop and fine-art print publisher Gemini GEL in Los Angeles. With Gemini GEL, Sidney quickly got to work with some of the biggest artists of the twentieth century: Man Ray, Josef Albers, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg, to name a few. And Gemini GEL continues its work with new generations of artists, including Julie Mehretu, Tacita Dean, and David Hammons.
Sidney Felsen is the co-founder of Gemini G.E.L., a printmaking studio in Los Angeles that has been operating since 1965. Some of his photographs documenting the artists at work at Gemini are collected in the book The Artist Observed.
Nature Video: “Woodland Words – The Laboratory with Leaves” (Oxford)
Sarah Watkinson is Wytham Woods’ first poet in residence. She leads us through a delicate maze of woodland and words, weaving together nature, research and poetry. In their work, scientists are objective: they don’t express opinions, they don’t talk about themselves. Poetry would seem science’s diametrical opposite: it’s traditionally inward-looking and self-reflective. Sarah’s writing combines her scientific background and her love for form and words in the most delicate and unexpected way: observing the world, for her, is a form of poetry.
Art Books: “At First Light – Two Centuries Of Maine Artists, Their Homes And Studios” (Rizzoli, Mar 2020)
At First Light chronicles twenty-six extraordinary artists of the last two hundred years who have lived and worked in Maine. Published to coincide with the state’s bicentennial in 2020, the volume considers the significant contributions artists have made to a deeper and more profound understanding of Maine’s history, its land and its peoples. Maine’s unique and breathtaking landscape–from its rugged coastline, quaint harbors, majestic mountains, and verdant forests–continues to have a powerful effect on the artists who are drawn to its shores.
New Environment Books: “Koolhaas. Countryside, A Report” (Taschen, Apr 2020)
The rural, remote, and wild territories we call “countryside”, or the 98% of the earth’s surface not occupied by cities, make up the front line where today’s most powerful forces―climate and ecological devastation, migration, tech, demographic lurches―are playing out. Increasingly under a ‘Cartesian’ regime―gridded, mechanized, and optimized for maximal production―these sites are changing beyond recognition.
In his latest publication, Rem Koolhaas explores the rapid and often hidden transformations underway across the Earth’s vast non-urban areas.Countryside, A Report gathers travelogue essays exploring territories marked by global forces and experimentation at the edge of our consciousness: a test site near Fukushima, where the robots that will maintain Japan’s infrastructure and agriculture are tested; a greenhouse city in the Netherlands that may be the origin for the cosmology of today’s countryside; the rapidly thawing permafrost of Central Siberia, a region wrestling with the possibility of relocation; refugees populating dying villages in the German countryside and intersecting with climate change activists; habituated mountain gorillas confronting humans on ‘their’ territory in Uganda; the American Midwest, where industrial-scale farming operations are coming to grips with regenerative agriculture; and Chinese villages transformed into all-in-one factory, e-commerce stores, and fulfillment centers.
This book is the official companion to the Guggenheim Museum exhibition Countryside, The Future. The exhibition and book mark a new area of investigation for architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas, who launched his career with two city-centric entities: The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (1975) and Delirious New York (1978). It’s designed by Irma Boom, who drew inspiration for the book’s pocket-sized concept, as well as its innovative typography and layout, from her research in the Vatican library.
The book brings together collaborative research by AMO, Koolhaas, and students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Wageningen University in the Netherlands; and the University of Nairobi. Contributors also include Samir Bantal, Janna Bystrykh, Troy Conrad Therrien, Lenora Ditzler, Clemens Driessen, Alexandra Kharitonova, Keigo Kobayashi, Niklas Maak, Etta Madete, Federico Martelli, Ingo Niermann, Dr. Linda Nkatha Gichuyia, Kayoko Ota, Stephan Petermann, and Anne M. Schneider.
Fine Arts: 4k Virtual Tour Video – Van Gogh Museum “Self-Portraits Gallery”
Selfportrait gallery – Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum Tour in 4K. Have you always wanted to be alone in the Van Gogh Museum? Step into Vincent’s world and enjoy the private video tour. (Episode 1)
Boomers Daily 